Radiologic and scintiscan findings in HLA-B27 negative patients with ankylosing spondylitis.

Of 189 consecutive patients seen with definite ankylosing spondylitis, 17 did not possess the transplantation antigen HLA-B27. These 17 patients had less severe radiological evidence of disease than the group as a whole, or a sub-group matched for age, sex, and duration of disease. This supports the suggestion that the HLS-B27 antigen itself may play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease, and does not serve merely as a marker for a linked immune response gene.